The Puzzle - Brother Ali

(Who's to blame for the state I’m in

I play my cards but somehow can’t win)

Listen when life leaves you beaten up

Don’t lay around in it, hurry pick them pieces up

Cling closely to the people you love

They’re your umbrella when the weathers tough

See to it that your head is up

If not just remember this

Just never let your chest and your chin touch in public

Those that stand against us would love this

Man fuck them, something’s bugging em'

They feel inadequate or something and that’s been dug in em'

So deep they can’t stand someone else making shit

Player hatred, same concept created Satan

Play em, no never mind let em play their part

They’re here to make us prove we are what we say we are

We say we are the hard hearted

Been discarded from everything we’ve ever been part of

They just robbed it

Unguarded, tormented and tortured

And got nothing but scars and grey hairs to show for it

Fuck that, every stone that’s ever been cast or blow that ever landed

Helped to build that man that’s standing before your bitch ass

And back to wreak havoc and never retired, retreated or recanted

I, don’t expect you to have stood where I’m standing

Why, respect is the only thing I’m demanding

Try, you and I could build this understanding

You can’t honestly shake unless you know where my hand’s been brother

This is a piece of my puzzle now

Through the years I found peace in my struggle now

If we were put here to carry a great weight

The very things we hate are here to build those muscles

This is a piece of my puzzle now

Through the years I found peace in my struggle now

(Who's to blame for the state I’m in — Yours truly

I play my cards but somehow I can’t win)

Listen I was taught that mistakes made with great intentions

Were never sins but where life lessons begin

Now that I’m 27, single father starting over yet again

I am who I have to forgive

Lost my mumma to cancer, closed a 10 year chapter shortly after

Can’t deny that was some shit

Alone in this life would’ve been at my throat with a knife chop

Were it not for my passion to live

Follow my soul, not that I don’t know the penalty

But that’s the legacy that I pass to my kids

Heard of shining in the heat of the moment

And won my freedom the moment I realized that’s what this…

I can’t believe my eyes Lord

I don’t know what I’m seeing

I done watched them smash into little pieces everything I’ve been building

I can’t believe my ears Lord

I don’t know what I’m hearing

I heard they smash into little pieces everything I’ve been building

(Who's to blame for the state I’m in

I play my cards but somehow I can’t win)